Home prices finally hit a bottom in 2012. So will 2013 be the year of recovery or relapse? This is the fourth in a series of blog posts about where housing is headed next year.

Credit standards are tight. Yes, the Federal Housing Administration allows borrowers with credit scores of less than 700 and down payments of just 3.5% to buy homes. But lenders are still scrutinizing property appraisals, reams of income and bank statements, and anything else that could be used to force them to buy back the loan should it default, which means that it is much harder to get a loan than at any time since the 1990s.

Rising home prices could eventually serve as a tailwind for credit. But it’s not clear how aggressive lenders will be in easing their standards as long as they have plenty of business—which they do right now thanks to heavy refinancing volumes from low interest rates.

There are other factors that are likely to keep restraints on mortgage lending next year.

While there have been some fears in the banking industry that a series of new regulations that are part of the Dodd-Frank financial-overhaul law would further tighten lending standards, a more likely result is that those regulations keep today’s lending rules in place.

In addition, financial troubles at the FHA, which has played an outsized role facilitating new lending, could lead that agency to crack down on lenders and take other steps that make credit more costly at the margins.

Another challenge facing the mortgage industry is that several large banks have reduced their appetite for buying mortgages from smaller lenders, drying up credit for so-called “correspondent” lending. While new players are rushing into the void, they’re not large enough to replace the capacity that has been lost over the past few years. Community banks and credit unions have also ramped up lending and can offer more flexibility, but they’re also too small to move the needle on credit creation.

Big lenders have been reducing their footprint amid growing legal expenses and put-back costs from their legacy loans and as new international capital standards are implemented forcing them to hold more capital. Banks also aren’t eager to invest in building capacity because origination volumes are likely to fall whenever mortgage rates rise from their current levels, which are the lowest on record.

Banks have engaged in defensive underwriting for the past few years, scrutinizing any flaws with a loan file to avoid the risk that they’ll have to repurchase the loan from Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac if it defaults. So-called “put-backs” of bubble-era mortgages have cost banks billions of dollars.

There are signs that lenders could ease some at the margins, but overall, buyers shouldn’t expect that getting a loan will get easier anytime soon, even though rates probably can’t get much more attractive.